We are donating £1 for every job we complete between now and the fundraising deadline on 10 January and, to put that in perspective, we normally do 1,500 jobs a week during December and early January. I've also made a couple of personal donations too.

Student loan debt is scary, but you also worry about finding a job without a degree. Then you have to factor in your parents' opinions. Mum wants you to be a doctor; dad wants you to be an engineer. And you don't want to disappoint the good people who've kept you fed and clothed all these years...

In order to ensure a healthy banking sector, it needs to adopt the practices of the plumbing industry or any other services sector. Those include capping bonuses at no more than annual salaries, making bankers work harder for their pay and persuading them to care more about customers.

If any further evidence was needed of how far Labour leader Ed Milliband is from living in the real world, then the opening of his party's conference drove it home. Going for the headline grabbing policies that you'd expect from an opposition leader, Ed put his hand into the bag full of issues concerning the electorate and pulled out 'foreign workers' and 'apprenticeships.'

What Jamie is actually saying is that people with the gumption to come from far away to make a better life for themselves are tougher than those Brits who have been showered with state handouts for most of their lives. For me, it's a no brainer - a hungry man will always be tougher than one living off the fat of the land.

The government's common sense decision to scrap the compulsory retirement age in 2011 and let people freely work beyond 65 was one of the most rational legislations ever passed. However there is still a lot of work to do on changing the perception of older workers and employers' attitudes towards them.

The UK must have a sustainable and appropriately-skilled workforce, and apprenticeships are the best way to ensure this for the future. Encouraging skilled apprenticeships is vital to ensure the continued health of the economy and ensuring we can meet industry needs in years to come.